In Performance: Recordings

By ALLAN KOZINNA

Published: June 22, 1994

Boyce's Symphonies: Period Music, Modern Appeal Academy of Ancient Music, directed by Christopher Hogwood William Boyce's eight Symphonies (Op. 2), composed from 1739 to 1758 and published in 1760, have a foot in the world of Handel and a toe or two pointing toward early Mozart. They are, really, proto-symphonies: opera overtures that escaped the theater to stand on their own as abstract entertainments. With their compact structures, in which cheerful, danceable tunes alternate with graceful slow movements, they have the anonymous chug-along quality of Baroque table music. Yet they also have a magnetic charm, which Christopher Hogwood and his Academy of Ancient Music mine irresistibly on this L'Oiseau-Lyre release (436 761-2, CD).

A well-played modern-instrument version from Ronald Thomas and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta on CRD offers more dramatic dynamic shaping, brisker tempos in the outgoing movements and a generally brighter sound. What Mr. Hogwood's version has going for it is transparency and detail. His balances are more realistic: as zesty as the Bournemouth group's playing is, a tinkly harpsichord continuo rides over the band with suspicious ease. The Academy's strings are recorded with greater warmth and presence. And if the Bournemouth woodwinds and brasses sound more confidently extroverted, the tangy, well-tuned sound of the period versions gives the quick, jiglike finales a vibrant edge that the modern instruments cannot duplicate. ALLAN KOZINN